If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you about the importance of cybersecurity. However, unlike the lock to a physical door, which generally lasts a good long time, measures you take to protect your company from hackers and malware need to be updated and reinforced much more regularly.

Business owners, with the year just about over, you and your leadership team presumably have a pretty good idea of where you want your company to go in 2024. The question is: Can you get there?

As summer slips away and fall shuffles forth, business owners and their leadership teams might want to take a look at the overall marketing strategy they’ve pursued this year. How’s yours doing? It may not be entirely too late to make some adjustments to ensure your sales numbers wind up where you want them.

Business owners: If you’re having trouble reading the U.S. economy, you’re not alone. On the one hand, the January 2023 jobs report revealed that the unemployment rate had fallen to 3.4%, its lowest level in 54 years. And inflation, while still a concern, has moderated in most sectors — staving off fears of a recession in the immediate future.

Every business owner launches his or her company wanting to be successful. But once you get out there, it usually becomes apparent that you’re not alone. To reach any level of success, you’ve got to be competitive with other similar businesses in your market.

When strategic planning, one important question to regularly ask is: Just how competitive are we anyway? Objectively making this determination entails scrutinizing key factors that affect profitability, including:

Industry environment. Determine whether there are any threats facing your industry that could affect your business’s ability to operate. This could be anything from extreme weather to a product or service that customers might use less should the economy sour or buying trends significantly change.

Tangible and intangible resources. Competitiveness can hinge on the resources to which a business has access and how it deploys them to earn a profit. What types of tangible — and intangible — resources does your business have at its disposal? Are you in danger of being cut off or limited from any of them?

For example, do you own state-of-the-art technology that allows you to produce superior products or offer premium services more quickly and cheaply than competitors? Assess how suddenly this technology could become outdated — or whether it already has.

Every business has some degree of ups and downs during the year. But cash flow fluctuations are much more intense for seasonal businesses. So, if your company defines itself as such, it’s important to optimize your operating cycle to anticipate and minimize shortfalls.

A high-growth example

To illustrate: Consider a manufacturer and distributor of lawn-and-garden products such as topsoil, potting soil and ground cover. Its customers are lawn-and-garden retailers, hardware stores and mass merchants.

The company’s operating cycle starts when customers place orders in the fall — nine months ahead of its peak selling season. So the business begins amassing product in the fall, but curtails operations in the winter. In late February, product accumulation continues, with most shipments going out in April.

At this point, a lot of cash has flowed out of the company to pay operating expenses, such as utilities, salaries, raw materials costs and shipping expenses. But cash doesn’t start flowing into the company until customers pay their bills around June. Then, the company counts inventory, pays remaining expenses and starts preparing for the next year. Its strategic selling window — which will determine whether the business succeeds or fails — lasts a mere eight weeks.

There’s no way around it — owning and operating a business comes with risk. On the one hand, operating under excessive levels of risk will likely impair the value of a business, consume much of its working capital and could even lead to bankruptcy if those risks become all-consuming. But on the other hand, no business can operate risk-free. Those that try will inevitably miss out on growth opportunities and probably get surpassed by more ambitious competitors.

Your business’s brand is more than just a logo or tagline. It represents the culmination of everything you’ve accomplished to date, as well as a promise to uphold the reputation you’ve established.

With the pandemic behind us and a red-hot summer in full swing, many of your company’s employees may be finally rediscovering the uninhibited joys of vacation.

Open enrollment for most health care plans is many months away. That makes now a good time for businesses to consider changing their employer-sponsored coverage for next year, or perhaps to think about launching a plan for the very first time.

If you’re going to do either, you’ll have many details to sort through. To simplify matters a bit, le

Most businesses today understand all too well that they must craft a robust and varied benefits package to draw good job candidates and retain valued employees. But beyond basics such as health insurance and a retirement plan, there are so many options. Well, you can add one more to the list: fertility benefits.

There’s no getting around the fact that accurate financial statements are imperative for every business. Publicly held companies are required to not only issue them, but also have them audited by an independent CPA. Audited financial statements provide the highest level of assurance to third-party users that the documents in question are free of material misstatements.

When the leadership teams of many companies engage in strategic planning, they may be inclined to play it safe. And that’s understandable; sticking to strengths and slow, measured growth are often safe pathways to success.

Business owners and their leadership teams are rightly urged to engage in regular strategic planning to move their companies, thoughtfully and consciously, in a positive direction.

However, no matter how sound a set of strategic objectives might be, it’s always important to bear in mind that your competitors have plans of their own. That’s why you should consider integrating competitive intelligence into your strategic planning efforts.

Once a business is up and running, one fundamental aspect of operations that’s easy to take for granted is billing. Often, a system of various processes is put in place and leadership might consider occasional billing mistakes to be part of the “cost of doing business.”

If you were told someone earns more than $200,000 annually, you might assume the person is a salaried employee who’s ineligible for overtime pay. However, as demonstrated in the recent U.S. Supreme Court case of Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, this isn’t always a safe assumption.

It’s every business owner’s nightmare. You wake up in the morning, or perhaps in the middle of the night, and see that dreaded message: “We’re down.” It could be your website, e-commerce platform or some other mission-critical information technology (IT) system. All you know is it’s down and your company is losing money by the hour.

A recent report shows that post-pandemic global business travel is going strong. The market reached $665.3 billion in 2022 and is estimated to hit $928.4 billion by 2030, according to a report from Research and Markets. If you own your own company and travel for business, you may wonder whether you can deduct the costs of having your spouse accompany you on trips.

The qualified business income (QBI) deduction, which became effective in 2018, is a significant tax benefit for many business owners. It allows eligible taxpayers to deduct up to 20% of QBI, not to exceed 20% of taxable income. It can also be claimed for up to 20% of income from qualified real estate investment trust dividends.

Summer is around the corner so you may be thinking about hiring young people at your small business. At the same time, you may have children looking to earn extra spending money. You can save family income and payroll taxes by putting your child on the payroll. It’s a win-win!